The Sametime Blog

I don't know if this has been widely shared yet, but as Lotusphere drew to a close, we learned that Akiba Saeedi would be leaving us for a new challenge in IBM. For the past four years, Akiba has led the Sametime product management team with equal parts passion, intelligence, eloquence and tenacity. (Ok... maybe a little more tenacity.) She, Adam Gartenberg and David Marshak were instrumental in reinvigorating the Sametime brand and establishing our Unified Communications and Collaboration Strategy.

On February 1st, Akiba joined the Information Management division of Software Group where she's taking on portfolio strategy for emerging markets and products. Just to show how small IBM actually is (despite its size) one of the products she's taking on is the Infosphere Traceability Server. This was a key component of IBM Solution for Pharmaceutical Track & Trace... which was of the solutions I used to own before coming to Sametime.

Internet Telephony has just awarded IBM a 2009 Product of the Year Award for IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony. "IBM has proven its commitment to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “We’re happy to recognize and honor IBM for their development of IP communications technology. We look forward to more innovative solutions from them in the future.” A complete list of Product of the Year winners is published in the February 2010 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine (www.itmag.com). For more information about TMC, please visit TMCnet.com.

We're very proud of the 2009 launch of Sametime Unified Telephony. This also comes on the heels of IBM winning the 2009 TMC Unified Communications Excellence Award for our IBM Global Technology Services Converged Communications Services for Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony. The combination of our award-winning software, services, hardware and industry expertise uniquely positioned IBM in 2009 as a leader in unified communications, and we look forward to an even stronger 2010.

A new PBS Frontline documentary that airs tonight has a segment on IBM's efforts to conduct internal meetings in virtual worlds (using Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Sametime - aka Sametime 3D) and how more than 10,000 IBMers are incorporating virtual world meetings into the way they work.

Part of the IBM segment for the Digital Nation documentary was filmed from the home of Francoise LeGoues (IBM VP of Innovation Initiatives) and follows her as she participates in virtual meetings and talks about the use of virtual worlds for collaboration. Another part shows IBMers being trained on virtual world technology.

All of the "in world" scenes shot in her home office as well as the training session were done in Sametime 3D!

What impresses me most about IBM’s UC2 solutions are
the breadth and depth of the product offerings. Most of IBM’s UC
products have evolved over 10 years, with continual added
functionality. Many of the demos at Lotusphere showed how easy it is to
add functionality to an application...

While waiting for the Sametime 8.5 demo I assumed that it
couldn’t be a big deal – not with a .5 release. Well, I was wrong. IBM
Lotus really beefed up the collaboration capabilities with a new online
meeting experience, new mobility support, and a social views capability
that makes it easier to find people you collaborate with the most.
Another surprise was the improved integration with Microsoft Outlook
and Office.

IBM
Lotus also made it easier for partners to integrate with its UCC
platform. Of special interest to me is the SIP-based audio/video
interoperability, which brings me to Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT).... Several customers had integrated Sametime into a multi-vendor PBX
environment using SUT. This is a really big deal. Customers told me
that they were able to combine the value of Sametime with telephony and
video capabilities without replacing their existing phone systems.

What made the biggest impression on me from Lotusphere is the large number of customers who got on stage to talk about their Lotus implementations and applications. Almost every announcement and product introduction included customer testimonials. What’s more, many of these customers were or are Microsoft shops using Exchange and SharePoint. IBM went out of its way to explain its desire to provide customers with choices – even when it means supporting a competitive product... I know that based on what I witnessed at Lotusphere, IBM Lotus continues to have a great vision for UC and collaboration – as well as lots of passionate and loyal customers.